The culmination of a long growing season, the autumn harvest comes once a year. We mark the end of summer with the release our seasonal brown ale, Harvest. Vermont maple syrup added during the brewing process yields a lasting sweetness on the palate that's guaranteed to warm your soul.

Raise a glass and enjoy the spirit of the season. Pairs well with wood-splitting, leaf-raking and pumpkin carving.

In celebration of the autumn harvest we’ve brewed this brown ale with locally harvested Vermont ingredients... a truly unique Taste of Vermont!

Presentation: 12 oz brown longneck with a bottled on date clearly marked. A blurb about using 17 different malt and hop varieties.

Appearance: Deep reddish chestnut in colour with a tight tiny-bubbled lace, which does well to stick all over.

Smell: Hints of toffee, toasted malt and semi sweet floral hop.

Taste: Medium to full bodied with a lightly moderate carbonation that makes for a smooth malty mouth feel. Toasted malt, caramel/toffee and a mellow fruitiness are the core characteristics. Hops send a quick biting bitterness; it goes away as soon as it comes leaving a mildly sweet herbal finish amongst a grain and a healthy dose of residual sweetness.

Notes: A fall seasonal sure to please the hard core ale drinkers. Serve at cellar temp and it is to die for. A smorgasbord for the senses to make for a truly great brew.

More User Reviews:

Poured a brilliant clear light bronze color with some deep burnt orange hue a frothy,tight 1/2 finger well retained head atop,somewhat muted aromas some caramel and butter with an underlying light roastiness not much hop presence to it.Flavors tend to be on the malty side the hops provide some earthiness mainly starts out somewhat sweet and buttery like caramel corn almost with a defient toatiness underneath the earthiness finishes this beer out in a drying finish.Not a bad brew seems to be pretty basic in the amber category I personally would have liked a more hop presence in a harvest ale but this is a quaffing ale.

Aroma is malty - almost like toasted whole wheat bread with hints of hop & sweetness. A nicely complex brew - flavors of cocoa, toast, nuts, some fruitiness, and a decent amount of hop bitterness combine to keep your entire mouth interested. A beer that's perfectly suited to its release - you can practically taste & smell fallen leaves on a Vermont lane. Stupidly poetic, yes, but that's the image the flavor of this one conjures up. A fall favorite, and one of Long Trail's better efforts.

Appearance: It had a medium reddish brown color with good clarity and a thin just off white colored head. The head hangs on and leaves nice lacing on the glass.

Smell: Its aroma has hints of lightly toasted sweet malts with some mild floral and leafy hops.

Taste/Mouth feel: The flavor was for me a little light but nicely balanced for the style. It has a nice malty presence with just enough hops for balance and character. The body had a smooth medium body with average carbonation.

Notes: Over all its very good but I would like it to have a little bit deeper, more assertive flavor.

Pours a clear brown with next to nil head. No lacing to mention. The Aroma smells of light toffee, caramel, and a touch of hop spice. Flavor is very thin. Notes of some toffee and caramel, maybe a bit of cocoa peaks through in the front but fades off very quickly to not much of a flavor at all. Thin mouthfeel, watery, not much carbonation. I didn't enjoy this beer very much.

12 ouncer, pours clear darker honey amber, minor head/lace, seems to be pretty low on the carbonation scale. Minor malty nose, none too interesting on the tongue. Very so so, middle of the road brown in my book. This bottle also tasted to be on the oxidized side to boot. Not too impressed with this one. Ended up as a drain pour...

Mouthfeel/Taste: Medium bodied, smooth but thick. Taste has some nutty quailities, malts, and carmel. Faint hops. The brewer claims that it is brewed with maple syrup, but I do not taste that fresh maple syrup taste(true syrup, not the sugared up store bought crap).

Overall: Decent brew, I belive that the nutty characteristics of the beer reflect the maple syrup, making for a more subtle flavor. I would have this one again.

12oz brown bottle served into a pint glass.Found this one way in the back of the fridge almost forgot about it. Wanted to do a review a few months back.Poured a clear dark amber color with 1" of bone white creamy foam dissapated quickly to a coating not a lot of carbination some exteremely small particles floating around with a very close look.Clean fresh aroma,fruity,perfumy.lightly sweetened carmell with mineral water.Earthy taste with tart fruitiness not real malty some metallic carmell not offensive. Good balance nice tangyness leading into the finish. Light bodied and smooth to the finish. Wish i could have tried this a few months ago like i planned. Will have to pick more up next year.

Harvest opens with a yeasty, malty aroma, like rising wheat dough and toast crust, but with layers of delicate sugars dancing on the surface, including tender pink grapefruit, light rose petal, fig, pear, and just a touch of maple syrup. A more solid orange and apricot layer rises just above this, but by and large the bready grain flavors take center stage, reminiscent of wheat fields after a rainstorm. As a whole the nose is good, but slightly light on sugars, and for a beer brewed with maple syrup, the actual maple syrup notes are very light--light enough that I'm not sure I would have known they were there, were it not printed on the label, and would have attributed the aromas to brown sugar.

On the tongue, Harvest opens with a grain-based movement, being full of wheat stalks, whole wheat toast crust, biscuit, and floury baguette. The sugars come in later, and while they do bring some sweetness to the brew in the form of brown sugars, light vanilla, some caramel, and the faintest hint of maple syrup, the grains still win out handily. In fact, there's even a slight tobacco layer near the bottom of the figurative well, and this alone creates more attention than the maple syrup. The aftertaste does bear a few more berry notes, as well as wheat stalks and brown sugars, and lingers for a decent while. Mouthfeel is medium-light to medium, and carbonation is medium.

Overall, I like this as a friendly and accessible summer beer, being lighter on flavors without sacrificing nuance. However, for a Fall beer (Harvest only being brewed September to November), I would like a bit more sugary punch to accompany the already-present and excellent layer of grains and breads.

There's obviously a large difference between the reviews of this beer posted by regular users and those posted by The Bros. According to the one Bro review, the reviewed bottle apparently contained "A blurb about using 17 different malt and hop varieties." However, a quick check of Long Trail's website reveals only five malt and hop varieties: Two-Row, Wheat, Amber, Nugget, and Mt. Hood. I'm not sure if the recipe changed, or if a review was posted incorrectly.

pours out a clear brown color, with 2 fingers of fizzy tannish colored head. sounded kind of like i was pouring some coca cola. the head faded pretty quickly to a ring, then eventually to nothing. no lace.

in the aroma there are notes of chocolate malt, and some nicely roasted malt, perhaps some roasted coffee as well. a little bit of a mineral like quality. smells good!

nice taste as well, a little surprised with this one! roasted malts, chocolate malts, bits of coffee followed by a nice fruitiness, some bakers chocolate, slight herbal hop bitterness.

medium to light in body, somewhat of a sparkly carbonation.

this drinks really nice, i might not buy this again, but i could see myself enjoying some more of it. this was the best in the variety 12, the blackberry wheat was a close second however.

Dark copper color with an off-white frothy head that sinks quickly. Low aroma of sweet malt and flowers, a little buttery. Flavor is light and sweet, mild malt, also a bit flowery with some notes of popcorn. Low hop presence. Smooth mouthfeel, carbonation a bit on the low side. Flavor is a bit too mild for me.

Poured a very handsome dark coppery-brown, with a very bubbly off-white head that hung around a long time. The smell was very stale to me. Nutty, but very musty. It's definitely fresh beer. Bottled all of 8 days ago.

The taste was a bit of a letdown. Very flat across the malt profile, thinish mouthfeel, and very little hop character that was enjoyable. I'm really suprised how much I didn't like this beer after reading previous reviews. Thought it would be my kind of brown.

Long Trail Harvest Ale is an okay brown ale. After drinking a mild stout having this beer was like drinking nothing. The roast and toasted flavors seemed pretty muted, the color was nice and there was alittle head stand. But beer didn't have the richness and chocolately flavor that I was expecting. In the new tradition of bold, flavorful browns, this falls short.